


What Is Seen and What Is- Rick Sees

by TWDObsessive



Series: What Is Seen and What Is. [2]
Category: The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: But she'll still cut your junk off if you don't do what she says, Carol's making a casserole, Daryl fresh out of the shower, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Fluff, Friendship/Love, Love Confessions, M/M, POV First Person, POV Rick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-08 01:08:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5477471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TWDObsessive/pseuds/TWDObsessive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After walking away from an enlightening conversation with Aaron, Rick finds Daryl to explain what he's discovered. </p><p>(Part 2 of the "What is Seen and What Is." Series)</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Is Seen and What Is- Rick Sees

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd. Turning this into a brief series just so I can play around with different POVs. 
> 
> Here's my plan:  
> Part one- Aaron POV  
> Part two- Rick POV  
> Part three- Carol POV  
> Part four- Daryl POV  
> Part five- Eric POV

The length of four houses never felt so far. After talking to Aaron, after _seeing_ , I couldn't get home fast enough. 

He was right. Everything he noticed from the way we talked to the way we touched made so much more sense. I just never even thought about it. Too busy surviving. Too busy trying to get everyone from one day into the next. 

And I _wasn't_ gay. At least I hadn't been. So to think of Daryl like that was not something I'd arrive at easily. But Aaron was right. About the way we stand close. The way my body magnets towards his when we talk and vice versa. The way we look at each other. His eyes on mine. He'd probably know the second I walk in the door, the second those ocean blue eyes grabbed on to mine. He'd see everything. Because when he looks at me, he _sees_.

I wanted something nice in this shitty world. I did. Something more than running and moving and struggling. I wanted something warm and comforting and good. I wanted Daryl. I wanted the 'everything' that Aaron talked about. Daryl's skin against mine. His lips brushing my lips. His heart beating against my chest, synchronized with my own. The knowledge that he was mine and I was his. Everything. 

I was so busy with new wants, that I was home before I realized I had no plan at all. No idea of exactly what to say or how. I walked in the door to a house full of family bustling about in the kitchen and scanned the room for Daryl. 

"He's in the shower," Carol said when she caught my eye. I walked over and looked at the casserole she was fussing over. 

"How'd you know who I was looking for?" I mumbled as I took a few canned mushrooms off the top and ate them. 

She swatted my hand when I reached back for more. "You're always looking for him."

I grunted, Dixon-like, in response. "How'd you get his ass in the shower?" I asked with a smile. 

She stopped opening the can of French fried onions and looked at me. "Threatened to castrate him," she said flatly. I nodded with a chuckle just picturing him pouting and bitching about it. But he'd know Carol was deadly serious. We all did. We may not have jumped at her demands back in the days of the quarry or the farm. But now? If she threatens us with castration, we are going to assume there's a strong chance of follow-through and just do what she says.

I slipped out of the kitchen and headed up to the room I'd been sharing with Carl and Judith. Daryl, always selfless, had taken the couch and according to Michonne he was actually, more often than not, sleeping on the front porch.

When I reached the top of the steps I saw him at the end of the hall, coming out of the bathroom looking like a miserable drowned rat. 

"Shut up," he muttered. "She threatened to cut off my junk, man."

I nodded and tilted my head towards the bedroom. He followed without question or hesitation because he always followed.

"What's up? What's the matter?" he asked, his body leaning in towards mine and his voice low even though there was no one around we needed to be quiet from.

His hair was sopping wet. Like he hadn't even toweled it dry and his thin t-shirt clung to his still-damp chest. 

"Jesus, didn't you even dry off?" I asked, and pulled the towel from his hands. I covered his hair with it and rubbed hard to dry it out like I used to do with Carl. He just stood there like I knew he would because he rarely questions me unless there's a good reason for it.

When I handed him back the towel his hair was sticking every-which-way and he had questions in his eyes. He wouldn't ask them. I knew he wouldn't. He was the most patient person I'd ever met. He would stand there for an hour if I stood there too, patiently waiting for me to say whatever it was I had to say. But he he didn't need to wait because he could read me. My eyes and my body. And I remembered that we really didn't need words very often. And maybe that was how I needed to explain this. 

I could tell the second he captured my thoughts. His lips parted, his pupils blossomed and he nodded, a barely visible nod. One only I would ever notice. He let the towel drop to the floor as I took the one small step I needed to reach him. I slipped my fingers into his hair and pulled his mouth to mine stopping just a moment before they touched. Giving him a second to correct me. To say 'no' if this wasn't right. But he didn't pull away. He waited, his quick breaths ghosting over my lips until I pressed mine against his.

Our lips slid into place and I could feel him relaxing into me. His hands timidly coming to rest on my hips. Heat came off of him in waves and his mouth answered mine in every way we moved, every shift of lips and slide of tongue. The taste of him was familiar, earth, air, sun and sky. And the feel of being against him was like home, like settling into a favorite chair, like the peace of a quiet summer night.

We jumped apart at the sound of a creaking floorboard behind us.

"Oh, sorry," Carol said as she put some of Judith's washed clothes on the dresser. There was no surprise in her voice. No shock. 

"We just... We were..." I stuttered, not sure if I even really cared about pretending.

"Rick, please," Carol said condescendingly, hands on her hips. "The only people who didn't see this coming were you two."

She turned on her heels and walked away. I looked back to Daryl. "I didn't know how else to explain it with words," I said softly. 

"I like this explanation. It was very...clear."

"Aaron told me. Y'know, that we have something. That he could see it in us. Didn't take much thinking to realize he was right. You've been everything to me for a long time, Daryl. You know that, right?"

He smiled shyly, eyes sparkling in the late day sun that poured in through the windows. He walked backwards, kicked the door shut and leaned against it. 

"No, not really. Can you explain it again the other way?"

**Author's Note:**

> Kittysaurus said that she'd like to know what happened when Rick found Daryl. And I wondered that too. So I went with Rick's POV to get that. Next part of the series will take place 45 minutes later from Carol's POV as the family sits down to her casserole. After Rick and Daryl had been up in Rick's bedroom. Alone. For 45 minutes. And they arrive at the dinner table trying to play it cool.


End file.
